Last day - Last session

The program for the conference I am attending in October is finally out, and so too, my moment of truth. When will I give my talk ? As anyone who has experienced the tension and fear that surrounds standing up in front of experts in your field and trying to convince them you're not a complete twat knows, getting it over and done with early is paramount. At the very least, before the conference banquet so you can hit the turps guilt free, and build on your new found exposure by joining an eminent professor in a karaoke duet of "New York New York" ... or whatever else the night may bring.

Unfortunately for me, this is not to be. In a conference spanning four days, each with 10 parallel streams broken into 5 sessions, somehow, amongst all the possible times I could have been allocated, I managed to score the second last time slot of the entire conference. The second last slot, of the last session, of the last day, of a four day conference. Sure, everyone gets dealt a bad hand every now and then, but what makes this a little unluckier than usual (and a little spooky) is that this is the second time, in as many robotics conferences, that this has happened. And I mean exactly - second last talk, of the last session, of the last day. What's with that ?

Of course, one should keep things in perspective. If having to give a late conference talk is the only cost I must pay for a week long trip to Beijing, then things really aren't that bad. Still - this is the second time it's happened. Sure, I might be in a slightly fringe area of mainstream robotics research, but even so, the general topic of the session I have been allocated is "Mobile robot control" - not particularly peripheral one would think - certainly not as peripheral as Biologically Inspired Robotic Fish, which scored a first session, second day berth. I have nothing against robotic fish, but one does have to wonder what a robotic fish that is not biologically inspired looks like (and how it may still be called a fish) ?

... anyway ....

I am not sure how the order is really chosen. I suspect it involves quite a lot of constraint juggling. The organisers would want to organise things in such a way that people interested in particular topics, need not have to choose which papers in those topics they will have to miss. Having said this, I can't imagine too many people hanging out for paper #400 - the second last presentation, of the last session, of the last day.